| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: no ship's officer perhaps had ever been given before. It made me
feel a little sick to think what they would be dealing with,
probably. But there! Everything that happens on board ship on the
high seas has got to be dealt with somehow. There are no special
people to fly to for assistance. And there I was with that old man
left in my charge. When he noticed me looking at him he started to
shuffle again athwart the saloon. He kept his hands rammed in his
pockets, he was as stiff-backed as ever, only his head hung down.
After a bit he says in his gentle soft tone: "Did you see it?"
There were in Powell's head no special words to fit the horror of
his feelings. So he said--he had to say something, "Good God! What
Chance |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit
and departure of Bellairs. That he had got the address, I was
quite certain: that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was
convinced; some ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served
him. A similar chance, an equal ingenuity, was required; or I
was left helpless, the ferret must run down his prey, the great
oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the house let to some
stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now
filled the mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory.
Strange that such great matters, so old a mansion, a family so
ancient and so dull, should come to depend for perpetuity upon
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